Archive for September 28th, 2017

Amazon has seen what big name genre programming can do for other outlets, so it is looking for its own, putting three big projects on the development slate: Larry Niven’s Ringworld, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and Greg Rucka’s Lazarus.

Ringworld, which would be co-produced with MGM, has previously done a couple of development stints as a mini-series at Syfy, most recently in 2013. Word is that the series will potentially draw from all the novels. The first novel follows some explorers from several races who investigate – and crash land on – a gigantic artificial structure orbiting a star that has the surface area of millions of Earths.

Snow Crash, which would be co-produced with Paramount Television, follows Hiro Protagonist, a pizza delivery driver and hacker in future America, where a computer virus is attacking hackers and Hiro hunts down the virtual villain. Joe Cornish will executive produce along with Frank Marshall.

Lazarus, based on the comic book by Rucka, is set in an alternate near future where the world is ruled by 16 families in a feudal style, and each family has a Lazarus – a personal killing machine who acts as champion for the family.

Simultaneous production on the four Avatar sequels began this past week. This is the most ambitious production ever, tacking four movies at once for release in December 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025. Previously, The Lord Of The Rings trilogy was filmed as a unit by Peter Jackson, as was The Hobbit trilogy.

The 1981 sci-fi thriller Scanners from David Cronenberg, which starred Michael Ironside and Jennifer O’Neill, is now being adapted as a possible TV series by Media Res and Bron Studios. According to Deadline, they came out as the victors in a competitive bidding war, beating out Lionsgate, Paramount and Skydance.

The movie dealt with people with telepathic and telekinetic powers who are forced to work secretly for a corporation that deals in security and weapons systems – or hunted down if they don’t.

Rights were previously held by Dimension Films where they attempted to develop a new movie and a TV series, but it never resulted in anything.